Timbers to Announce 2011 Shirt Sponsor

By: mao | September 1st, 2010

Portland International Airport will be the site for the long-awaited announcement of the shirt sponsor for Portland Timbers in their inaugural season in Major League Soccer. Rumors have been swirling for some time that Alaska Airlines will be said sponsor, perhaps even taking over the rights to the name of the stadium. Interestingly, Alaska Air is based in Seattle and uses Portland as one its three hubs (Seattle and Anchorage being the others). While it is widely believed that the Alaska Air wordmark will be featured across the chest of the new adidas kits, this space believes that it might be Horizon Air, Alaska’s sister airline (and also based at SeaTac), that is featured on Portland’s kits. What is almost certainly not going to be on the kits is the famous Nanook of the North, used by Alaska Air on the tail fins of their aircraft. But there is the very real possibility of at least one plane getting a Timbers make-over, not unlike those featuring the four major colleges in Washington and Oregon.

That information will have to wait until December though, as the club will apparently not be releasing the new kits until the end of the calendar year. Of course with a contract with Nike currently in use, the club is not allowed to begin selling adidas kits while the current Nike versions are still worn on the pitch.